I took a look around at the canteen. Most were fast asleep, let alone that more than likely they didn’t speak Greek. And yet, for good measure, I spoke in a whisper.

-You mean that Seaman is enmeshed in Kennedy’s assassination? -They meant it to be an attempt, but they messed with the wrong guy. Lee Harvey Oswald.

The agents’ plan, or more precisely the ex-agents’ plan, was the following: They would make a failed attempt on Kennedy’s life. And they would leave behind evidence indicating that Castro was behind the plan.

The American people were very fond of the President who was married to Jackie and cheated on her with Marilyn. He would understand too, with death knocking on his door, that he had to invade in Cuba at any cost.

Ενισχύστε Το Συγγραφέα

Λογαριασμός Εθνικής Τράπεζας 432/605101-44

The attempt would be done in Chicago, where Kennedy had scheduled a speech. The snipers would shoot somebody from his guard, perhaps a bystander in addition – collateral damage. Then they would linger till they got arrested – in the belief that they would be treated well in prison and their relatives would be rewarded accordingly.

They were assured of that. But in reality, plans about their “accidents” had been already laid down, to make sure that there would be no witnesses left behind. But even so, knowing that they would be killed, there would be many willing to do it, such was the hatred they had for the communist Castro.

~~

One of the chosen snipers was Lee Oswald.

He grew up in New Orleans. His father had abandoned them. His mother was working double shift as a nurse and a charwoman to feed her two sons, Robert and Harvey.

Lee was a weird boy. He was not very good at school; he was dyslectic probably but back then there was no such thing as diagnosis for learning disabilities. They simply took him for a stupid. He didn’t mingle with the other children and he delved into Marxism from an early age, in an attempt to differentiate himself from his “ordinary” classmates.

He joined the marines and served in Japan, at the military base where U-2 spy planes were taking off, the plane-ghosts that flew invisible at a height of 80,000 feet taking photos of the entire Soviet Union.

As soon as he put this foot in Japan, he was seeking ways to contact KGB agents to defect to USSR.

His efforts paid off in the October of 1959. At the age of 20 he found himself at Moscow and informed the Soviets about the U2s, believing that in this way he would contribute to the communist revolution and would be considered as a hero.

He thought that he would be in the communist heaven but he found himself in the drabness of Soviet reality. He was assigned to work at a radio factory in Minsk, like an ordinary citizen.

He married a Russian woman and they had a baby too but Lee found life pretty tame in Soviet. After numerous claims at the American Embassy, he managed to go back to the USA along with his family. He was spotted there, out of work and destitute, by Seaman’s cronies.

~~

-And they trusted him? I asked Timothy. -There is no such thing in secret agencies’ book. Trust? He was useful and easy to be manipulated. Oswald was now positive that the communist paradise was in Cuba, not in USSR. The names he used were Hiddel, Harvey and Fidel. The ideal scapegoat. Such a staunch communist, so explicitly Cuba sympathizer. The Americans would love to hate him when the attempt would take place. -But something went wrong, is that right? JFK was murdered.

Harvey got cold feet at the eleventh hour and refused to participate in Seaman’s plan. We went to Mexico intending to make his way from there to Cuba. But the Cubans, with the intervention of Seaman among others, didn’t issue a visa.

He went back to America and began working in a schoolbook library, miles away from Chicago where the President was touring.

-Where did he work? -In Dallas. -But in Dallas… -That’s right, said Timothy. Kennedy was shot in Dallas.

That’s where chaos put its finger. Circles of President’s security received intelligence about the attempt. The tour was cancelled and they sent the President to a more secure place, in Dallas.

No matter how beyond belief it sounds, the parade with the Lincoln Continental Convertible was planned to pass from the library where Oswald worked.

-Perhaps this wasn’t a mere hap? -I don’t know. Nobody knows. And if someone did, they have probably bought the farm. The only certainty is that on 22 of November 1963, there were more snipers, not just Oswald who was quite far away indeed.

Two of them were exiled Cubans and had the order to miss. The cue would be an open umbrella. There is a picture where you can see a man watching the parade holding an umbrella in the shiniest of the days.

-Seaman? -In the newspapers trickled that it was a civilian, Luis Steven Thingy, who wanted to protest in this way. There is a video in youtube, do you believe that? Who was the umbrella man or something like that.

One of the two Cubans shot first. Connally was seriously wounded while riding in Kennedy’s car. The other one shot a passer-by. And then there was a salvo of three shots. The one hit Kennedy on the wrist, the second, Oswald’s probably, on the chest. The third, and the fatal one, came from in front, since the President was rocketed back, and sent his brain on Jackie’s hands.

Oswald left the library as if nothing had happened. He went home and then got out to go to the movies. On his way there, he caught a policeman’s eye, because he seemed very nervous. He killed him too, with the revolver.

They arrested him in the cinema for the cop’s killing, unaware that he had shot the President. And he never admitted it.

For the police, the FBI and the press, he was the perfect culprit. Two days later he was murdered on camera by Jack Ruby, a man of the underworld and a strip-clubs owner, up to the ears in debt to Mafia. More than likely he was forced by the organized crime to do so, so that no trace of CIA would be left behind. These two have close ties and cover up each other.

-And Thanasis? Seaman? What became of him? -He was murdered too. During nineties some documents were declassified as a Clinton’s poor attempt to prove he was above the agencies. The old man knew too much and he should be put out of the way, just like everybody else who was in the loop. The official report on his death stated suicide, but I can’t believe that a man with such a fiber would ever do that.

~~

We took another round of beer. We were approaching Larisa.

-Did he ever talk to you about Greece? -I told you. He worshipped Greece. He used to talk to me about the village and the forest and how much he longed to go back even for one last time. -Did he ever mention a girl Mari? -Mari? -A widow…from Smyrna. -Now that you mention it…a redhead from Katakolo? -Redhead but…nevermind.

Timothy was a shrewd man, he understood that I was holding something back. I told him about Thanasis; the photo from 1933 and the uncanny resemblance, and Mari. I told him about the possibility that Thanasis Dogas, Timothy Seaman, could be my grandfather.

-Quite unexpected, said Timothy when I finished.

His reaction left a secondary taste in my mind, as if eating a Monsanto tomato and you taste something fishy before swallowing.

-It’s strange, he said looking outside. I’ve just remembered it. It’s so weird.

I let him to take his time. He looked as if he was confronting chaos. He, a scientist of the uncanny, opens the closet of the world and stands before…before what?

-I’m an only child, he said after a while. When I was a kid, I used to ask my parents for a sibling. They didn’t do me the favour so I created an imaginary brother. I must have been about three years old, surely no more than four. Then I went to school and I forgot about him. Never spared a thought on him ever since. -What’s the funny thing? A lot of children have imaginary friends and siblings. -Your name. His name. My imaginary brother had your name.

~~

I try to explain the world through mathematics. But when I’m on a good way, something pops up and ruins the equation. It is what Heraklitus said: The hidden harmony is better than the obvious. -How will you explain the world through mathematics? -I get your point. You don’t believe that there is an equation that explains everything. -Who could believe such a thing? -I do.

His romantic naivety made me laugh.

-The scientist faces the unknown and tries to tame it. The artist, the writer, sees the unknown and engenders more of it. You create order, at least you’re trying. I create more chaos with my every word. -But you don’t explain the world. -No, but I enjoy it. -It’s kind of selfish. -What isn’t?

We kept talking until we reached Thessaloniki at 6 a.m. We exchanged telephones, emails, facebook, links and we said our goodbyes after we hugged each other like brothers.

After some time I got a message. It was Timothy and it read: “I trawled grandfather’s diaries and I saw an entry. It was encoded but easy to crack. It reads: Mari. Naked. If she didn’t exist, I would have to invent her. Lust. I’m her faithful servant and I’m drowning in her sea.”

He fills me in often on his news and sends me his articles but I don’t claim that I understand that much. He reads my writings of my blog. Probably, he’ll read this too.

Goodnight Timothy, this world is beyond explanation.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Translated by Alexandros Mantas

Since we’re not native speakers, feel free to suggest improvements and make corrections